Last week, a team of Dutch experts led a series of Think Bike workshops in four U.S. cities to help advocates and planners design the bike infrastructure of the future. Cities across the globe continue to look to the Netherlands for inspiration, and guidance, and that demand is being embraced by a unique organization known as the Dutch Cycling Embassy.

The embassy is comprised of bike ambassadors from non-profits, private companies, bike manufacturers and local and national governments in the Netherlands. It recently released a new video that beautifully tells the story of how the bicycle became a part of everyday life in the Netherlands. Cycling has always been popular in the Netherlands, but as the video illustrates so well, there was a time when cars ruled and the transformation to bike-friendly streets didn’t happen overnight. It’s an inspirational seven minutes by Amsterdamize‘s Marc van Woudenberg and a must-see for elected officials and planners in the U.S.

The goal of the embassy, which has also launched a new website, is to “to support, facilitate, contribute to and inspire international cycling projects and policies helping countries, cities and its people to move forward in a safe and healthy way.” In addition to the video, you can download this great brochure [PDF] from the embassy, which has a lot of important and fun facts about bicycling in the Netherlands, “where 16 million inhabitants own 18 million bicycles.”

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

City planners often get very little public recognition for the work they do, and can sometimes take the heat on a project if it doesn’t prove politically popular. In the case of San Francisco’s revolutionary Pavement to Parks program, the early resistance to reclaiming public space from cars to create convivial spaces for people has gradually subsided and parklets are now in heavy demand. None of it would have been possible without the hard work and determination of Andres Power, an urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.

As the manager of the P2P program, Power has spent tireless hours managing the city’s initial plaza and parklet projects and moving them through the vast city bureaucracy. He deals regularly with merchants, neighbors and community groups. He’s worn a hardhat on many a Saturday and is the guy who gets called at midnight if something goes wrong.  Power’s unwavering dedication, even in the face of fierce opposition, has made him one of the unsung heroes of San Francisco’s livable streets movement.

Along with some of his colleagues at the Planning Department, Power is working from within to change the dysfunctional and old-school culture of city government with an eye to then transform our streets. The Pavement to Parks program is now catching the attention of cities all over the U.S. Last week, San Francisco issued a new request for parklet proposals, which means they’ll be spreading to even more neighborhoods.

Power was born in San Francisco and grew up in the East Bay city of Albany. I sat down with him recently to find out more about his interest in urban planning, and his involvement in the Pavement to Parks program.

Bryan Goebel: What sparked your interest in city planning?

Andres Power: I’ve always loved cities. Being in a place that’s dynamic and changing and exciting has always been something that has intrigued me. I’ve tried to think back and to figure out what my motivators were and I think I just landed in the right place, to be honest. I had some great professors in undergrad at Brown University that really were forward and progressive thinking and inspired me. Then, after undergraduate, I went and worked in New York at the Department of Housing and Preservation doing economic development for the city and it was just an amazing place to be. It was so crazy and frantic, such a huge and complicated bureaucracy, but still, individual people could make amazing changes.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

BG: So this was in your early 20s? You must have graduated from college early then?

AP: I graduated from Brown when I was 20. I was young for my age because I skipped a grade early on. So yes, I graduated early and worked for New York for, I guess, three and a half years. It was a really fun place to be, and I moved my way up through the system there and I was actually working in the Section Eight program. It was tangential to my interest but it was a fascinating work with a lot of smart people and it just really cemented my love for cities. It was so satisfying knowing that as a bureaucrat, I could make positive change for people.

BG:  Yeah, and I imagine living in New York deepened and inspired your interest in urban planning.

AP: Absolutely. There’s no question about it. At that time it was right after 911, so it was early 2002. The offices were four blocks from the World Trade Center so it was an interesting place to be, for sure, and the focus was really on emergency management type stuff, at first, and then things calmed down, and it was much more about starting to think about the future, and looking at the long-terms goals of the city. The notion of working for an entity that is thinking about what the future’s going to be in 20-25 years, and doing things in the short-term, to move us in that direction is incredibly satisfying. That’s what I do here now. It’s really about seeing what we want this city to look like, how we want it to function, how we want it to be for the next generation and working on the immediate steps to make improvements that move us in that direction.

BG: So you spent three and a half years in New York City, and then went to grad school at MIT for two years?

AP: Two years, yes.  MIT was an interesting place for sure. The urban studies program was somewhat isolated from the rest of the university but was still a crazy place. The buildings were all connected underground by these tunnels and there’d gatherings sometimes on the weekend in the tunnels where people would all dress up in Star Trek attire. So, a lot of the stereotypes that you would think of for MIT, definitely a lot of that happened there. It’s also a great place to be. People were really smart, really motivated and undoubtedly the program really cemented the notion that this is really what it was that intrigued me.

BG: So after MIT what happened?

AP: Getting a job anywhere in government takes a lot of time so the beginning of my last semester, in January or so, there was a posting for jobs here in San Francisco. I applied and actually got called back sooner than I’d anticipated, came out here over spring break, had an interview, had a second interview and was hired as an entry level urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.

BG: What exactly were you hired to do?

AP: The first thing I did was to come up with a streetscape plan for San Jose Avenue. It was a good first stab at doing this type of work and getting to learn the dynamics and the politics here. I remember going out with then Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval in his personal car. He took me down and showed me what he thought needed improvement. It was great, understanding the craziness and how the system in the city works, and how the public realm is managed by so many different agencies and entities. It was an eye-opening experience. Then from there I started doing a lot of graphics type stuff and early plan development for the Rincon Hill streetscape plan and the Better Streets Plan.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

BG: So how did Pavements to Parks get started? It all pretty much began with the 17th Street plaza, right?

AP: Yes. I’d been working with Adam Varat on content development for the Better Streets Plan for a couple of years at that point, and in that plan there was a lot of discussion about temporary uses of the right of way. What that meant wasn’t fully fleshed out but the idea was to be playful with the public realm and to think about uses that perhaps changed over time. Being creative in how we use a parking lane, for example, was particularly exciting to me. Then, New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn came and met with the different department directors and basically challenged the city to do something. She came and presented the work that she was doing to DPW Director Ed Reiskin, my director, John Rahim, and [SFMTA Chief] Nat Ford and the representatives of the Mayor’s Office and said, ‘This is what we’re doing in New York,’ which was a challenge to do something similar over here.

So, in response to that challenge, all the different departments submitted a list of possible projects based on culling the archives of community plans and public efforts. So that project, the Castro 17th project, was one that had been advanced by a couple of agencies. With DPW and MTA we moved it forward. This was around the same time that the Upper Market Streetscape Plan was being worked on and it talked a lot about making improvements to that intersection. So, it just sort of all came together, and [City Design Group Manager] David Alumbaugh felt very strongly that we should start off with something bold, making the subsequent projects easier by comparison. It was a smart move to make. As small as it is, the Plaza location was as complicated as one can be, with the streetcar going right through and cars coming from just about every direction. But we knew that the users were there, and that the community was generally on board with it. At the same time Public Architecture came to the city and was offering its services to help with a public space project.

“I think in my mind the most beneficial change is really pushing the city family to be okay with experimentation.”

Change is always hard. Beyond the actual projects that the Pavement to Parks program has installed, I think in my mind the most beneficial change is really pushing the city family to be okay with experimentation. At Castro, how a trial plaza could come together was incredibly challenging for the bureaucracy to wrap its collective head around. So the proposal languished. Getting approvals was incredibly difficult. But finally, with some colleagues we thought, ‘we’re just going to get this done, this is ridiculous,’ and we got it done. Once the project was installed some department heads came together with the Mayor’s Office to talk about what we learned and what the next steps were. Basically, what came out of that meeting was that we needed someone who would be empowered to just make things happen and someone who ultimately would be responsible for delivering the projects. So, they put me in charge and that’s how the program came to be.

Power with architect Jane Martin constructing the Guerrero Park plaza. Photo: Jamison Wieser

BG: What do you see as some of your biggest challenges now?

AP: Amongst the city family, I think generally speaking that there is alignment with what it is that we’re doing, but not everyone necessarily agrees 100 percent, or is as gung-ho about this work as I am. It’s incredibly difficult to get people to just say, ‘this is how we’re going to make it happen.’ The culture has been changing and it’s gotten much better, at least in a relative sense over the last number of years, but the culture’s always been, ‘no, you can’t do it and this is why.’ It’s never been, ‘This is what you want to do, let’s figure out how we’re going to make it happen.’ And as for design, it’s always been the common denominator that gets implemented. Everyone has to weigh in. Muni weighs in, the traffic engineer weighs in, the utilities weight in, the street sweeper weighs in. Then once you’ve resolved all of their individual concerns, you have your end product. That’s how things have been done historically, but at the end of the day that end product doesn’t necessarily advance the city’s collective goals. The most challenging piece is getting the projects through a system that is not geared to making these kinds of things happen in an easy way.

BG: What about the occasional opposition that arises from merchants, or neighbors, like what happened in Noe Valley?

AP: Not every project is going to work and I think it’s great, ultimately, that people speak up for what they believe. I may not necessarily agree with that position, and I may know their arguments are technically incorrect, but at the same time, I think it’s perfectly legitimate for people to not want something and I think that’s just part of the way things are in a heterogeneous community. Generally speaking, most people want urban public spaces, most people want open space, most people want amenities, most people want bicycle infrastructure, most people want storm water improvements. So, it’s not convincing people of the merits of that per se. A lot of it has to do with disagreements between one neighbor and another so these kinds of projects can become the polarizing element for that. I have no problem with this reality, and it’s why cities ultimately are fun places to work in. It’s not like working in the suburbs where you have a much more homogenous perspective on things.

“The culture’s always been, ‘no, you can’t do it and this is why.’ It’s never been, ‘This is what you want to do, let’s figure out how we’re going to make it happen.’ “

BG: I was walking on Dolores Street recently and had an encounter with a woman who was walking her dog and was just furious the city had removed a parking space in front of her house to install a crosswalk. There’s a ‘war on drivers,’ she exclaimed.  In your role as a planner, and this is a difficult question, but how do we win the hearts and minds of people like that who don’t feel like they want to give up any space for cars?

AP: It’s not an easy answer. If we knew the answer to that, then we’d be golden. I think there’s a couple of things at play. In large part our work is about education and we’re not always good at that. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best. I think generally the city family’s not very good at it, but really what we ought to be doing, as people who are paid to be thinking about the future, is tailoring our messaging in an understandable way and to be able to explain why it is we’re doing the things that we’re doing. So, I think a lot of it is education. Some people may just fundamentally disagree with your position and that’s okay. But many people, when you have an informed and rational discussion about the merits of an effort, can ultimately become your best supporters. But specifically when trade offs involve a car, I think unfortunately people can become very passionate about it.

BG: Emotions can get in the way.

AP: It’s very emotional, yes, and so to a certain extent you have to do your very best to educate, and to be that facilitator and explain what it is that you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and what the benefits are for each person because ultimately it’s not just about taking away something from one person, and giving it to another. It’s about advancing our collective benefit. I think any type of change can be difficult for people, but at the same time, I do believe that delivering good projects and being able to show, for example, the lady with her dog, that benefit to her as she’s trying to cross the street. There really is an immediate benefit to her. She’s probably much less likely to get hit by a speeding car. Her dog is less likely to get run over because of that improvement that was made.  So, it wasn’t just about taking a parking space away, it was about making her condition better. I think the city is not the best at making this understood, although we’re constantly working to improve our communication.

Enjoying a light moment in the Castro plaza while shooting a Streetfilm. From left, Power, City Design Group Manager David Alumbaugh and filmmaker Paul Jaffe. Photo: Bryan Goebel

BG: Where do you see the Pavements to Parks program going?

AP: That’s a good question. The Pavements to Parks program has been really focused as of late on getting the parklets up and running. I think we’ve done that. I think we’ve created a model that is sustainable for the long term. We’ve done a lot of work, with great help from the Department of Public Works, the MTA and the SF Great Streets Project, to come up with the mechanisms to evaluate these projects and facilitate them because at the end of the day we want to be encouraging this. We want the city structure to be set up in such a way that it’s incentivizing and not making it difficult to make public improvements.  So, with that under our belt, to a certain extent the question now becomes, what’s next? Are there going to be more plazas? Are we going to be doing some other design typology perhaps that we haven’t even thought about yet? I think the answer to that ought to be yes. Aside from the physical projects that Pavement to Parks has produced, which I think are great things, one of the amazing contributions it’s provided is showing that experimentation is a good thing, and how it can produce good stuff. The vehicle of Pavement to Parks, this interagency cooperation, can apply to anything. Theoretically, it could apply to innovative treatments of a bike lane, or whatever it is we want to try. The structure of Pavement to Parks is such that the actual physical improvement can be anything, but the process to get it on the ground is really about what Pavements to Parks provides, and it’s an expedited process. I think it’s a great example of what happens when people come together saying, ‘We want to get this done, how are we going to make it happen,’ as opposed to figuring out a way why you can’t.

I think the streets of our city ought to be designed for the kind of use that provides the most benefit to the most people, both at the local level, and ultimately on a global level because what is sustainable in the long term is a city that encourages and gives priority to people who want to walk and who want to move around in a way that doesn’t produce an externality on somebody else. Unfortunately, for the last 50 years, it’s been the opposite. We have been prioritizing the mode of transport that provides the most externalities on people, and so I think a long-term vision for the city is one in which the fabric really is about the best common good. I think for me what that means is a place where driving is a last option. I think we’ve got a long way to go to get there, while, at the same time, I do feel like there will always be the need for a vehicle. I have to remember to say that because I do believe it. I think whether it’s a solar powered car or whatever it is, ultimately there is a need for transport of kids and goods but as a primary transportation mode, I think that there isn’t room for that in the city.

BG: What advice would you have for other cities looking to do parklets and plazas and repurpose space for people?

AP: Start with the location, either for a plaza or a parklet, that you know will be successful. One that has a strong on the ground partner who is vested in helping ensure that the space is successful. This is absolutely key as the success of the first installation sets the groundwork for many more. Also, don’t expect to create a program first. Start with a great project that people will be excited about and the the program will follow. Get authority from the very top – you’ll need it – so that you can push through the inevitable red tape. Also, have an answer to the inevitable questions that will come up. “Putting a parklet in will make the cross section of the street too narrow for a fire truck.” Remind the reviewer that a parklet is no wider than a parked car.  If it’s okay that a car is parked there, why can’t people sit there too. Celebrate the first project. From there, the next installations become easier.

"I think SFPark will give San Francisco the best of both worlds. If it works it will make San Francisco an even better place to live and work and visit and do business. It will be another feather in the city's cap and other cities around the world will copy you," said UCLA professor and parking guru Donald Shoup. Photo: Bryan Goebel

San Francisco launched the world’s most ambitious and innovative parking project yesterday, a federally-funded trial that could revolutionize the way cities manage the public supply of parking. SFPark promises to make it easier for motorists to find spaces in busy commercial districts, while reducing congestion, speeding transit, increasing safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, and improving air quality.

The milestone for SFPark was celebrated at a packed press conference in the North Light Court at City Hall yesterday morning. SFMTA Chief Nat Ford was joined by Mayor Ed Lee, parking guru and UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, and other dignitaries to announce the SFPark iPhone application and real-time parking availability data.

The demand-based parking pilot is being implemented over the coming months, covering 7,000 of the city’s 28,800 metered spaces and 12,250 garage spaces. Drivers, thanks to street sensors, or magnetometers, will be able to check their iPhone application (an app will be available for Android in the coming weeks), or computer, to get real-time data on the availability and cost of parking spaces in 15 commercial districts.

“How many of you have been dumb in your past? How many of you have acted dumb? I know I have,” said Mayor Lee. “You know, when you’re driving around looking for a parking space and you’re double parking and you’re running around trying to see whether something will open, you’re dumb.”

“We want to be less dumb about this, and that’s why I’m so happy to launch today’s pilot program, SFPark,” Lee said. “That’s going to be our San Francisco version of congestion pricing.”

From left, Board of Supes Prez David Chiu, SFMTA Chief Nat Ford, UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, SFCTA Executive Director Jose Luis Moskovich, and Supervisor and TA Board Chair Ross Mirkarimi.

Lee said that parking meter translated in Chinese as “the lion machine,” and in Chinese culture “when you are confronted with a lion, the lion eats you.” Because of SFPark, he said, parking meters will be “less of a beast,” and drivers will be so happy they found a spot “you’ll want to Tweet it out.”

“SFPark creates a perfect marriage of technology, real-time information and pricing to make it easier for people to park here in downtown San Francisco,” said Federal Highway Administration Deputy Director Greg Nadeau. “This is not just about technology or pricing. It’s about making it easier to park in a major city and all the benefits that flow from addressing that one issue.”

Nadeau said the federal government was happy to award a $20 million grant to make SFPark happen, and that it was consistent with the livability goals of the U.S. Department of Transportation, led by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Click to enlarge this image of the SFPark iPhone App, now available in the iTunes Store and the SFPark site. Image: SFMTA

“I’m so glad that we’re welcoming your not ordinary smart meter into San Francisco. Finally we have a smart meter that doesn’t cause headaches, it actually helps them,” joked Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the chair of the San Francisco Transportation Authority Board, in reference to the turmoil over PG&E’s electricity smart meters. “There are over 200,000 vehicles that enter San Francisco’s borders every single day and it’s incumbent upon us to do everything that we can to try to alleviate that congestion.”

Professor Shoup said the central idea behind SFPark is that you can’t set the right price for curb parking without first knowing how people are using that parking.

“SFPark sets a clear principle for setting the prices for curb parking, the lowest price the city can charge without creating a shortage. So, the right price for curb parking in San Francisco is rather like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography: I know it when I see it.”

He pointed out that thirty percent of San Francisco households don’t own a car and the city uses parking meter revenue to subsidize Muni. Oftentimes, transit riders “are mired in traffic congested by richer drivers who are cruising for under-priced curb parking.”

“You pay every time you board a bus and that makes you think about whether you want to ride the bus. If you also pay the market price for curb parking every time you pull into a space it will also make you think about whether you want to drive,” Shoup told the crowd, adding that SFPark has the potential to tame the politics surrounding parking because “wanting more money will no longer justify raising the price of parking.”

Today’s City Hall event marked the culmination of years of work by the SFMTA on the project, which initially faced a wave of resistance, and now enjoys the full support of the city’s political establishment. SFMTA staffers, led by SFPark Manager Jay Primus and SFMTA CFO Sonali Bose, worked tirelessly over the past three years conducting outreach to elected officials, merchants and neighborhood groups.

“The people who are working on SFPark are the smartest and most talented and most overworked civil servants I have ever met,” said Shoup. “If SFPark is a success, it will be in large part due to the heroic determination to make it work here.”

And if it doesn’t work?

“Well, then you can always blame it on a dumb professor from Los Angeles,” Shoup said.

One of SFPark's 5,000 "coin and card" meters. SFPark will result in less congestion in busy commercial corridors, which will mean improved conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Photo: GOOD

While many Americans may not think riding a bus is the sexiest form of transportation, the reality is that a majority of public transit trips in the U.S. are taken by bus. Every one of the hundreds of thousands of passengers who boarded a bus in the last year has a story to tell and there are probably lots of Streetsblog readers who would love to share a tale about their favorite line. So why not nominate it as the best bus route in America?

Transportation Alternatives has joined with GOOD Magazine for a contest asking public transit riders to email in their photos and brief captions making a case for why their bus ride is the better one. From GOOD’s website:

Bicycles can be chic, subways artful, but buses? Buses are not exactly the golden child of transportation. They’re more like the red-headed step child: Deep down you know they mean well but they’re just a little harder to love.

Yet public buses are an essential form of transit in cities across the country, and they account for a big chunk of the nearly 10.2 billion trips Americans took on public transportation in 2009. We think it’s time to give a little love to one of the least celebrated modes of transit. To that end, we’ve teamed up with Transportation Alternatives and an impressive group of bus-loving jurors to see and hear why your bus route is the best in America.

What is it about your bus route that you love? Is your bus driver brilliant? Is the view from your window breathtaking? Do your fellow riders characters belong in a Hemingway novel?

The judges include Earl Blumenauer, Enrique Peñalosa and TA Executive Director Paul Steely White. I’m honored to also be a judge. You only have until next Wednesday, November 10th, to submit your entry. You can email them to busroutes@goodinc.com or tweet the entry to @GOOD and use the hashtag #bestbusride. Good luck!

The proposal from a local politician -- via Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland -- is being touted as a safety measure: shoulderless rural highways in St. Charles are too narrow for anything but cars. So rather than figure out a way to accommodate bicyclists and improve safety, Councilmember Joe Brazil wants an outright ban.

Maus found a local TV news video on the story "scary and surreal":

Have we really come to a point when we will simply give our roads over to the fastest vehicles? This same line of reasoning could be used to close all types of roads where there are fast-moving cars and no room for anything else.

I feel for the young woman who was hurt trying to avoid someone on a bike, but using that example as a reason to ban people riding bikes is absurd. How many deaths and injuries have occurred on those same roads between two people in cars? Rural roads are the main cause of traffic fatalities in America. We should do more to ban speeding than to ban people using a vehicle that is incapable of it...

Everyone frames this as "motorists" and "bicyclists" -- but this is not about mode labels, this is about people and mobility. Our shared roads (being different from interstate highways and biking trails) are built to move people from one place to another. It's an extremely slippery slope to even consider policy that would ban one type of user simply because they travel more slowly than another and are seen as an inconvenience to maintaining a certain speed.

Fortunately, a voice of reason has emerged, but St. Charles County officials are vowing to push ahead and defend the proposal.

Elsewhere around the network, Spacing Toronto celebrates the recent arrival of on-street bike parking while Greater Greater, Washington finds WMATA employees blocking bike racks with their cars. And any transit rider who has fumbled for change will appreciate a new sculpture in St. Louis featured on nextstop.

Last month in San Francisco we covered the shocking story of a man who went on a rampage and ran down four cyclists. While that kind of pathological behavior is rare, those of us who pedal through traffic-choked streets every day know it doesn’t take much for a driver to get angry behind the wheel and cause a great deal of harm, whether it’s careless or intentional.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we turn to Canada, where Biking Toronto begins a 10-part series on the "10 Secrets to Cycling with Traffic." Even though many cyclists sometimes feel like drivers are out to get us, whizzing by with tempers flaring, riding with traffic can be less intimidating when you think about the human being behind the wheel:

They may not be your biggest fan, and they may think you are in their way, that you are too slow, that you don’t belong on the road, and they may be a bit jealous of your tight cycling butt, but most of them are not homicidal.

They may seem scary because they are seeing things from a drivers’ perspective, and often have not given much thought to how vulnerable cyclists are. The vast majority of drivers don’t want to kill you… they just don’t understand you.  As well, the very LAST thing 99.99% of drivers want to do is hurt someone.

A lot of drivers are also cyclists (and vice-versa) and don’t want to be in a collision with you.

I bet any cyclist you know with a drivers license can tell you that knowing things from a cyclists’ perspective has made them a much better driver.

Knowing this one thing will give you a lot of confidence.

Good advice, but I also can’t help wondering how many more people would feel comfortable following it if urban motorists consistently drove in the range of 20 mph, the speed limit that’s currently sweeping Britain.

Elsewhere around the network, Market Street Railway offers up a historical piece marking the three-year anniversary of San Francisco’s T-Third light-rail line, the Greater Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition is frustrated by the lack of progress on a bike-share program, and Yonah Freemark examines lower-cost high-speed rail in France.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made a surprise visit to the closing reception of the National Bike Summit last night, speaking to a record crowd of bicycle advocates and industry representatives, many of whom spent the day swarming the halls of the Capitol as part of the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) annual lobby day.

"People get it. People want to live in livable communities," LaHood told the crowd, after hoisting himself atop a table in the Dirksen Senate Office Building room so the large gathering could see him. "People want streetcars that are made in Portland, Oregon. People want walking paths, biking paths, and opportunities for families to really do the things they do best, which is to hang together and have fun. You all created an opportunity for America with all of your hard work."

"I’ve been all over America, and where I’ve been in America I’ve been very proud to talk about the fact that people do want alternatives. They want out of their cars, they want out of congestion, they want to live in livable neighborhoods and livable communities." He added, to thunderous applause, "you've got a partner in Ray LaHood."

"Ray, we've got your back," said Congressman Earl Blumenaur, the founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, who told attendees that they have made a difference but there are "a lot of people who don't get the big picture yet."

The reception ended the league's 10th annual summit, which saw a record number of attendees: more than 700 advocates from all over the country took part.

"From my perspective what has changed most dramatically is not just the numbers over the years, but our own belief in the ability we have to convince others this stuff actually works," said Andy Clarke, President of the LAB. "We've got examples in the field now in San Francisco, in Portland, in Chicago, New York City, where you can document a real change in behavior, and we've got mode shift going on and we can see why it's happened." 

The underlying theme, as it has been in years past, was the reauthorization of federal transportation law. Bike advocates also asked lawmakers to expand programs like Safe Routes to School and adopt new legislation to improve conditions for walking and biking.

"It's a challenging time to be asking for more funding," said Clarke. "But this isn't new money, first and foremost. There's money in the system that can be used that isn't being used on safety programs or bridges or congestion relief programs that can very legitimately be used for biking and walking."

That message, said Clarke, is what advocates were urged to tell their representatives.

"I was rather impressed with some of the speeches our people made," said bicycling pioneer Gary Fisher, who attended the summit for the first time. "We keep coming and coming and coming and it keeps getting bigger and bigger."

For more on the National Bike Summit, visit Bike Portland. Jonathan Maus cranked out some excellent coverage.

We've also got video of most of LaHood's speech to the bike summit, but a warning that the quality isn't the best:

Congressman Earl Blumenaur. Photo: Jeffrey Martin, courtesy of the League of American Bicyclists. 

A large crowd of advocates packed a room for the National Bike Summit closing reception in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Cycling pioneer Gary Fisher meets Transportation Secretary LaHood. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Streetsblog San Francisco Editor Bryan Goebel sat down with Google Engineer Scott Shawcroft today to discuss the new software and Google's plans for enhancing it. 

Scott Shawcroft demonstrates Bike Map for a bike summit attendee. Photo: Bryan Goebel.

Data gathering was a difficult part of the process, according Shawcroft, and he encouraged users to try the mapping service and give Google feedback on what works and what doesn't. Users can report problems directly to Google in a box on the left-hand navigation bar in the bicycle directions section of Google Maps.

You can listen to Bryan's full interview with Shawcroft here:

In a statement, Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer said it shows how short-sighted and out of touch Republicans are:

Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for our future; it is precisely the kind of investment the American people want. American families have indicated time and again in the passage of bond measures across the country that they favor spending on alternative transportation, such as bicycles and mass transit, over spending on more highway capacity.  Americans want a real solution to the economic crisis, not just a band-aid fix.  These investments will stimulate the economy in the present and point our nation toward the economic and environmental realities of the future.

Call or write DeMint and Coburn and tell them what investing in bicycle infrastructure really means:

Coburn's Washington office: 202-224-5754 or email.

DeMint's Washington office: 202-224-6121 or email.

And then call Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and tell them to kill the amendment:

Schumer's Washington office: 202-224-6542 or email.

Gillibrand's Washington office: 202-224-4451 (no official email yet).

"Our infrastructure choices will help determine whether people can choose alternatives to driving their cars," Pelosi told the RPA convention. "In Congress, we are leading by example with a ‘Green the Capitol’ initiative that will make our complex a model of green infrastructure and environmental stewardship."

If that's the case, why didn't Pelosi fight for public transit in the stimulus bill passed in the House yesterday, instead of a meager $9 billion that only rose to the original $12 billion because of an amendment by Rep. Jerry Nadler? Why is transportation spending so highway heavy at $30 billion? 

"This is not all we're going to do," said Pelosi's spokesman, Drew Hammill. "We know we can’t do everything in one bill and there’s restraints on what we can spend. She said we have to do something to quickly turn around the economic situation. The number one priority here is turning the economy around."

Hammill actually said the $12 billion is "a huge step forward for public transit." In California, under the stimulus bill, about $950 million will be allocated as transit capital, compared to $2.7 billion for highways and bridges.

"This is a bill about the future," Pelosi said today at a news conference with fellow Democrats. "It is a bill that will guarantee that we will create jobs, that there will be good paying green jobs that will transform our infrastructure, transform our energy and how we use it and our dependence on foreign oil."